A normal appendix in a painful sliding hernia--an unusual case.

UNLABELLED: Aims: This study aimed to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Tamil version of the Eating Assessment Tool (EAT-10). Setting & Study

Design

Prospective cross-sectional study on persons with Head and Neck Cancer (HNC) during their follow-up for oncological and swallowing consultation at a tertiary care hospital and healthy individuals recruited from the community.

Methods

The study was conducted in two phases: (1) translation and development of the Tamil version of EAT-10 and (2) administration of Tamil EAT-10 to assess internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability and known-group validity. 92 participants with HNC in the clinical group and 149 healthy adults in the control group completed the Tamil EAT-10. In addition, a subgroup of 20 participants with HNC repeated the questionnaire within a week to assess test-retest reliability.

Results

The Cronbach alpha for the 10 items was 0.96 indicating high internal consistency reliability. The test-retest reliability of the individual items and the total scores (r = 0.98) of the Tamil version of EAT-10 were high. The total EAT-10 scores for the HNC group (14.4 ± 11.5) were significantly higher (p < 0.001) than the scores for healthy adults (0.72 ± 2.0).

Conclusion

The Tamil version of the EAT-10 developed in this study is a reliable and valid self-administered tool for identifying concerns related to swallowing among persons treated for HNC and healthy adults. This tool can be implemented for clinical practice and research in dysphagia among a Tamil-speaking population.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12070-022-03376-8.